Front-line NHS staff asked for views on improving healthcare service

Doctors, nurses and other NHS staff are being called on to develop new standards to measure and improve the quality of care in the health service.

Local NHS organisations are being encouraged to engage with staff to help develop a framework for new indicators that will measure quality at local, organisational, regional and national levels.

The indicators will also be used to help implement improved healthcare as part of health minister Lord Darzi's NHS Review.

The Department of Health (DoH) has identified a list of existing indicators used by various parts of the NHS to measure performance. Staff are being invited to comment on the usefulness of each indicator, which applies to their specialism and to suggest other measures they may already use, but which are not on the list.

Darzi said: "We can only improve the quality of care we give to patients if we constantly and methodically measure it. Developing a set of quality indicators in partnership with front-line staff will allow clinicians to measure their team's performance in a constant strive to improve and compare it with their peers across the NHS."

The DoH said the results of the regional and online engagement with staff would be used to develop a range of indicators to be introduced from 2009.